Girl idle animation (Zelda-like view, looking for advices)

[winged doom]

Hi Pixelation!


So here is the animation:



And all the scene:



As you see everything on picture is in motion. So I thought that the girl should also make some movements. And I made this animation, as like she's breathing.

But now I'm not sure that it looks like this way. What you think, guys?

Maybe there are some other ideas for idle animation? What character like this (it's witch by the way) can do in front of a dangerous enemy (on top side, it's kind of demoness or something)?

Also, what do you say about the proportions of flying female?



Does she look fine?

[MysteryMeat]

Looks fine to me, Most of the time any motion is better than no motion. try giving the hair more interaction with the wind. I'd also try giving the grass tiles some movement.

[pistachio]

more gold from WINGED DOOM

The animation of the tiny demon guys is great, the floating girl tho would gain a lot from being smoother like that. Looks like first pass (rough animation) so far. Sure this could be fixed.

IE, timing of ease-in and ease-out could be refined, hair, legs and breasts could follow the main movement of torso (follow-through), sneak some subpixels in there as well if you know that. I also wanna see the hair blowing around more but that depends on visual direction.

[winged doom]

Looks fine to me, Most of the time any motion is better than no motion. try giving the hair more interaction with the wind. I'd also try giving the grass tiles some movement.

Thanks for the idea! I definitely should try this. 

Looks like first pass (rough animation) so far. Sure this could be fixed.

Not really. I didn't plan to improve animation, because supposed that it's okay.  So this is the reason why I showed this work here, I just need an outside view (i'm not sure that it's right words, I mean your fresh look).
Well, okay, then I should improve it. Guess that such impression is due to the slow framerate (it's 0,2 second now). And because of what the animation looks a twitchy. So I think more frames with 0,1 sec framerate can improve it.

IE, timing of ease-in and ease-out could be refined, hair, legs and breasts could follow the main movement of torso (follow-through), sneak some subpixels in there as well if you know that. I also wanna see the hair blowing around more but that depends on visual direction.

Ok, I'll try it!

[Vinik]

Nitpicking comment (nothing else to say, you know it is great): there is a bit of overlap on the lower left particle effect of the hovering female, it is being rendered over the stone pedestal, while her shadow is projected on the floor tile behind, so the particle should probably go behind as well

This is awesome, I love the floor texture, and I am studying exactly that right now by chance. Edit: are the frame ornaments a Ys reference?

[winged doom]

Nitpicking comment (nothing else to say, you know it is great): there is a bit of overlap on the lower left particle effect of the hovering female, it is being rendered over the stone pedestal, while her shadow is projected on the floor tile behind, so the particle should probably go behind as well

Aw, now I see it too! Thanks!

Edit: are the frame ornaments a Ys reference?

Nope. Can you show it, please?

[Vinik]

Looking now it is not so similar, but that was what it brought to my memory, the old Ys have many of those frames

[astraldata]

Hi winged doom!

Just my two-cents.... Get ready!!

lol

First off, the girl looks like she's hurt and/or falling asleep animation-wise. She could just bounce back and forth like a typical "fighter" or streets of rage kind of animation (but more subtle of course) so that you can emphasize that she's a girl. With the back of a big-muscled brawler, you kind of need details like hair flowing in the wind or some subpixel animation to emphasize at least one or two traits that say "girl" -- and unfortunately the "dress" / "skirt" doesn't do that well enough since it reads more as a tail or something else than a skirt/dress thing to me.

As for the flying-female -- I was seriously convinced this was a Sephiroth-style male (since the breasts didn't really come across to me with the dark clothing). The silhouette was unfortunately what kills it completely for me though -- the waist isn't small enough to emphasize the "heart" shape of the hips from this angle.

Take a look at Ayla from Chrono Trigger.



She definitely comes across more as female (and in less pixels too!) than your boss character, so there is definitely something you can do if you study her a bit. She's at a similar angle to your character (albeit a little less stylized), so she's definitely a good study case.


You've got a great-looking setup with your environment there -- I like it a lot. It made me think of old games like YS too.

I also like the Imp and fire animations -- but, for some reason, they (when combined with the whole image there) make me want stylized human characters too (to match the "character" of the imps a bit more -- They seem really charming and lively compared to the two "main" characters, who are a bit less "colorful" comparatively-speaking.)

Sorry if my critique was too heavy-handed -- To me, it's more valuable to hear what others really see in my hard work than for them to just give me praise for it. I'd rather be shot down early (rather than later, after the game is released) since I can fix it better now than I can later... ;P

Overall though, I like it a lot! -- I'd really like to see an improved version of the characters!

[MysteryMeat]

I dunno if Ayla's the best example, a lot of her coming across female is because of the pose, floofy hair, and animal-fur bikini than anything particularly notable about the art itself.

For a more concrete tip, I'd say reducing how wide her shoulders are (right now they're kinda square/masculine) and making the chin a bit less flat will do wonders for fixing the female aspect though.

Something I picked up during my skull-drawing sessions was that women have more slim, pointed chins and jawlines. There's obviously exceptions to that, but on average girls are gonna have less of a "base" going on.

I'd also remove a pixel on both sides from the outer-top-edge of the hips to create a more natural curve there, right now it's a bit staircasey.

[winged doom]

Looking now it is not so similar

Well, I think it is look similar Maybe I nevertheless used this as reference? But I don't remember anything like that. The only reason why I added this border to make picture look more oldschool.

I'd really like to see an improved version of the characters!

Hi! Thanks for so detailed feedback! And MysteryMeat too!

Okay, I made some fixes to sprite of demoness. I fixed her shoulders and waist, and added movement for the breast.



I didn't add additional frames with a higher framerate to make movements softer, as I promised to    pistachio, because there will be more edits. So I will have to do it on final stage.

And I tried to fix the girl, but it didn't come off this time. Too small space for me (even if it's not so for "Chrono Trigger" artists) or maybe I'm too stupid now because of the course of tranquilizers. So I'll postpone it until the day my brains think better.

And no need to apologize, it's very valuable to me. Even if I can't make all the fixes  now, I'll come back to this later.